


Traffic of our stage

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Inspired by Real Events, M/M, Shakespeare Quotations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 11:10:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20425007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Phil learns that Shakepeare makes dick jokes, and Dan learns his lines





	Traffic of our stage

**Author's Note:**

> Dan and Shakespeare is just the combination to make me write fic, I guess. 
> 
> Also the interpretations of the text in this fic aren't exactly the most in depth or sophisticated, I just used these ones because I thought they were funny. 
> 
> Romeo and Juliet are idiots though.

A mug clicks down onto the desk, right by Dan's arm. 

"You've been reading that all day."

"Hm."

Dan doesn't look up, simply turns another page and reaches out for the tea blindly. 

"You know you don't have to be word perfect, right? You'll have the book with you."

Dan lifts his head, mug in hand. 

"I know."

He takes a sip, and his eyes drift back to the page. His lips are moving silently, mouthing words under his breath. 

Phil walks back over to his own laptop on the dining table, and leaves him to it. 

The light has dipped at the window, and Phil stretches his arms over his head, spine cracking. This scene isn't really working, but he isn't sure why. It's probably one of those occasions that he needs to stop staring at the page longer than the time it takes for him to answer a few emails. He needs to get up, move around. Maybe he could make some dinner early tonight. 

Dan has looked up at the same time, and he's out of his desk chair, walking over to Phil, slippers shuffling on the wooden flooring. 

"How you doing?" Phil asks. 

"Alright." 

The book is in his hand, held at his side. 

"What?" Phil says, knowing the look on Dan's face means he's about to ask for something.

"Would you run lines with me?"

He holds the books out towards Phil and Phil takes it, even as he grimaces. 

"You don't have to read the lines all fancy or anything. It'd just be good to do mine in context." 

"You don't have to learn them by heart though," Phil says, flipping open to the first page of dialogue. 

"I know I don't," Dan says. 

He drops into the chair opposite Phil and makes no move to look at the page before them. He doesn't have to, but Phil reckons he'll probably try to, at least. 

"I'm going to have the book with me on the actual day," Dan says, "I just want to see if I—"

"Yeah," Phil says. He closes his laptop and pushes is aside, leaning back in his chair and looking down at the book, "am I starting right at the beginning?" 

"You can skip the first bit, it's all dick jokes anyway." 

"Dick jokes?" 

Phil tries to quickly read through the first lines to find what Dan's talking about, but he can't really work it out. 

He has a vague recollection of having studied this play at one point, but he can't remember the interpretation of the words at all. 

"Just some crude comparisons with their swords, and some talk of whipping it out for Capulet women. They're basically bros." 

Phil scrunches his nose. 

"Just go from where Benvolio enters." 

"Okay, so Sampson says 'Draw if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.' and then they fight." Phil raises an eyebrow, "...yeah alright."

Dan laughs, but then straightens in his chair. 

"Part, fools!" he says, his voice strong and confident, he has all the intonation of what the words mean, like he's saying meaningful sentences, rather than the flat way some people read Shakespeare out loud. "Put up your swords; you know not what you do." 

"So he's a buzzkill," Phil says. 

"He's trying to keep peace," Dan argues. "Look, his next line is literally 'I do but keep the peace'." 

Phil glances down at the book, "yeah, but then Tybalt is all 'What, drawn and talk of peace!' You've got your sword out, but you're trying to keep the peace?" 

Dan smirks, and Phil catches the joke. 

"All these guys just stood around waving their swords about," Phil laughs. "My kind of party."

"There's actually a reading of the play that suggest Benvolio is in love with Romeo, you know."

"What do you think?" 

Dan shrugs, "I dunno. It's literature isn't it? So there are lots of interpretations. I don't think that's what old Will meant by it, but it doesn't mean people can't read it that way if they want to."

"Aren't they cousins?"

"People called all their distant family members cousin then, I don't think they mean first cousins. But even then, I'm not sure that mattered much. Anyway, you're one to talk."

"Don't bring my grandparents into this."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Dan quips. 

Phil nods, "Alright. We'll I'm going to read it like he is in love with Romeo then, and see what I think. Go on, what's the next bit?" 

Dan leans into Phil's space, flips over the page and points to a line of dialogue. 

Phil takes a breath and starts. He hates reading aloud, and his intonation is flat, but if it's helping Dan calm the nerves Phil knows he's been walking around with all day, Phil is happy to help. 

"Who set this ancient quarrel new abroach?" Phil says, "speak, nephew, were you by when it began?" Phil looks up from the book,"See! Nephew!"

Dan rolls his eyes, but begins his lines.

Dan has some long bits of dialogue in this scene, but he manages them all perfectly. They go through the entire bit with the Montagues and then his interaction with Romeo, Phil filling in all the characters apart from Dan's. Dan never misses a cue. 

When they reach the next scene, the Capulets and Paris, Phil sets the book down again. 

"So Benvolio is a peacekeeper, but also a snitch," Phil observes.

"He's doing what he thinks is best to keep his family out of trouble, I guess." Dan leans back and stretches his arms over his head, Phil hears the faint pop of his spine. "He has good intentions. For context, this isn't the first time he's seen people fighting, or Romeo mooning over some girl. I think he's just over it at this point."

Phil nods. "So Romeo isn't the great lover everyone makes him out to be?" 

"Romeo is a fifteen year old lovesick idiot," Dan says. "He's all broken up over this girl Rosaline who has rejected him, but Benvolio convinces him to go to a party and check out some other girls to try and get over it. Romeo is all sad and broody and talking about dreams - which Mercutio is having none of by the way - and then he meets Juliet." 

"And they're all on drugs?"

"I think that's just the Baz Luhrman version. Romeo is no young Leo, he's a twat."

"Poor Juliet," Phil says. 

"Yeah, but she was kind of an idiot teenager too."

"Yeah?"

"She's nearly fourteen and her parents want her to marry this guy Paris because he's from a good family and it'll be a prosperous match or whatever, but she doesn't want to do what her parents say because, you know, _teenage rebellion_, so she makes out with some other guy at their party who turns out to be the son of the one guy her dad has decades-old beef with. They got married in secret, Romeo kills her cousin and gets banished from the city and then through a series of events and missed messages, they both kill themselves because the other is dead."

"So it's a mess?" Phil says.

"Such drama," Dan says, "like most teenage relationships." 

"I wouldn't know," Phil says. 

"You watch Riverdale," Dan points out. 

Phil laughs, and picks up the book again. "Wanna do some more?"

"Just the last one I'm in, act three scene one. Benvolio does some more snitching." 

The pages skim past Phil's fingers as he skips to later in the play. He finds the passage he needs, where Benvolio enters with Romeo, and reads the line before Dan's. 

Dan says his part perfectly, all the way through to the end. 

"Wow," Phil says when Dan has finished his final monologue. 

"I think I'm getting some of the inflection wrong in the middle," Dan says. 

"Dan," Phil admonishes, throwing the book on the table and putting his hand on Dan's knee, "you're amazing. You're going to be great, trust me." 

Dan nods, chewing on his lip. "I just... I want to do it right." 

"You will." 

He knows what it means to Dan to do something like this. It's like he's come full circle from that scared teenager he was, like he's settled into his skin in a way that he hasn't been able to. He isn't thinking of what this will do for their careers, he hadn't said yes to being involved because it was an opportunity they should take because their jobs might fall apart tomorrow, this is just for him, because he wants to. 

The business has enough security, they've got enough of a nest egg that they don't have to carry that fear with them anymore. If Dan wants to read Shakespeare on a live stream for charity with people he looks up to and respects, he can. Because he wants to.

"Olly has done loads of Shakespeare," Dan says. 

"And he asked you to be involved," Phil says. "There will be other people there who don't even love it as much as you. You know all about the sword dick jokes, I bet they don't." 

"The height of Shakespearean interpretation," Dan jokes, but the nervous smile on his face looks a bit easier to come by. 

A few days later, Phil has been banished to their bedroom with a promise to keep the door shut and not listen. He does as he's told, but he can't resist pulling up the stream to watch it unfold. 

He laughs when Dan disconnects, and he feels a tight twisty happiness in his chest when Dan tells Olly what his video meant to him. He was there when Dan watched it the first time, they cried together through it, Phil for Dan, and Dan for himself. Both of them for Olly and for anyone else who had to feel like that. 

Phil opens another tab and is halfway through an order when Dan appears at the door. 

"Nice donation," Phil says.

Dan grins at him. "You were watching."

Phil nods. "Of course I was." 

"Is that why I disconnecth?" 

Phil laughs at him, "sorry."

"Is that Dominos?" 

"You just had to snitch on your family for two hours," Phil says, "I think that warrants pizza." 

Dan flops down on the bed beside Phil. His cheeks are a little pink, but he looks happy. 

"You're getting the door," Dan tells him. 

"Oh am I?" Phil says, knowing full well that he is going to. 

"Yeah, don't argue with me."

"What are you gunna do about it?" Phil asks. He completes the order and puts his laptop down on the floor beside the bed. 

"I dunno..." Dan quirks an eyebrow and reaches for him. Phil goes easily. "Draw my sword?" 

Phil laughs into Dan's mouth, drawing him in for a kiss. Dan's fingers slide up the side of Phil's ribs, under his shirt, with intent. The pizza will take at least a half hour to get here, they've got some time.

Phil tugs at Dan's shirt and Dan sighs, happily, and Phil kisses him a bit more.


End file.
